


Suffocating

by Crossover_Chick



Category: American McGee's Alice, Corpse Bride (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Partial Nudity, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crossover_Chick/pseuds/Crossover_Chick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always felt like she was suffocating - she never suspected others might be too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suffocating

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a Victoria/Emily fic on FF.net, “Hand In Glove,” where there was a particular emphasis on escaping the corsets and petticoats and other things forced on Victorian women. I wanted to show a slight genderflip version with a guy and his complicated clothing. I also liked showing the way neither Alice nor Victor is the “ideal” Victorian gentlewoman/gentleman, and how this brought them together. Opposites attract and all that. Also, I wrote this before "Alice: Madness Returns," so the talk about dolls is just oddly prescient.

All her life, Alice had thought boys had it easier.

After all, boys got away with wearing suits. Alice had never understood why women had to dress the way they did. She’d walked in once on her mother being drawn into her corset – the process had looked painful, even as her mother had explained it was necessary for women and that after all these years she barely felt it at all. And Mother had worn hers somewhat looser than some of her friends and neighbors. Some of _them_ had tight-laced to the point of nearly fainting. Alice had not looked forward to wearing one in her later years – the camisoles, petticoats, drawers, dresses, stockings, and aprons she wore as a child seemed quite enough fuss to her. Getting them all on in the morning was such a bother! And once they were on, you had to keep them clean and pretty. Boys and their suits didn’t have such limitations. Boys were _expected_ to get dirty, while girls --

It all came down to the fact that girls were supposed to be pretty little dolls. Dolls that moved, granted, but were still just dolls. Dolls that were beautiful and perfect and silent. Dolls that sat in parlor-rooms and sewed. Dolls that only looked out windows at the world. Dolls that never had adventures in the gardens, or made up fantastic places and people to visit when reality got too much for them. Adventures, excitement, all the things that made life worth living – those were for the boys in their suits. Not for pretty little girls.

Alice knew she had been lucky. Her parents had been of a more liberal mindset, and let her read (though for the longest time she bemoaned the value of books without pictures), and play in the garden, and didn’t scold her too terribly for getting her dress and stockings dirty. But still, even with that, Alice had eyed her male schoolmates and cousins and thought that they were luckier. These dresses, these petticoats and drawers and camisoles – they weren’t _her_. She wasn’t a pretty little doll to be taken out, displayed, then shut back up in a cupboard. She was _alive_ , filled with the need to explore, to create, to _be_. She ran, she raged, she _killed_ (only in her mind, granted, but the blood had looked and felt real enough at the time). And these dresses, these horrid dresses _suffocated_ her, forced to be something she wasn’t. Yes, Alice had been certain boys had it easier.

Now – she wasn’t so sure. Yes, boys wore suits, and undoubtedly they were simpler than some of the dresses Alice had worn in her lifetime. But they were more complicated than she’d realized. While girls had layers of cloth under their main garments, boys had layers of cloth over them. Vests and suitcoats and ties – what was the purpose of a tie? Corsets, though rather evil things if not laced right (and sometimes even when they _were_ ), had a purpose. A tie just seemed there to strangle a poor man’s neck. She’d asked Victor about it, and he’d pulled at his and shrugged and just said it was custom. At any rate, there were still far too many layers of cloth involved. And while boys seemed to have more freedom of moment, they too were chained up by propriety. A good man in a good suit was supposed to be masculine and strong. The one who earned the money, the one who took charge and did things. They were supposed to be stiff and formal, never breaking protocol or betraying emotion. Walking statues.

A good man in a good suit wasn’t supposed to be sensitive. Wasn’t supposed to care about butterflies and flowers. Wasn’t supposed to be shy and sweet. Wasn’t supposed to worry so much, at least publicly. Wasn’t supposed to look like they could break if you touched them wrong. Wasn’t supposed to be --

Victor.

Victor didn’t belong in that suit, Alice had realized. Victor was – was too _passionate_ for that suit. Sweet, kind, gentle, of course – but with something in him that yearned to be free. Something she heard in his music, saw in his drawings. Something that spoke of long, lingering touches and nights in each other’s arms. Something that wanted to have permission to be the weak one, if he chose. Something that wanted to be able to show he cared, without worrying it made him look undignified. And it had dawned on her that, just like she was suffocating in these dresses, he was suffocating in that suit, unable to breathe, unable to _be_.

So she’d undone the tie, unbuttoned the suitcoat and vest and shirt and found a body under there. Pale and fragile-looking, but still a body. She touched it, and despite his nervous protests, she could see in his eyes he ached for it. Ached to be touched, caressed, kissed all over. He _craved_ it, after being denied for so long, after being shut up in all that cloth. And she craved it too, and got him to pull off the dress and petticoats and unlace the corset to find her body under it all. Her body that needed the same touching, caressing, kissing as his. They pressed together, relishing the freedom, relishing the fact that they were two outcasts – the raging girl and the sensitive boy. Relishing the fact that, together, they could just be themselves.

And when she kissed him, she could tell it was like he was finding the air for the first time – because that’s how it felt for her too.


End file.
